Joelle Sonet<\/em><\/h4>\n <\/p>\n
I think about that summer a lot. I think about him a lot. I cringe a lot. I was like a baby deer, taking its first wobbly steps out into the big scary world. I crushed on him all summer. I was resistant at first. But he grew on me. I started to like the way he said things; spouting sophisticated ideas in his boyish caveman-lingo. I started to laugh at his jokes, slowly realizing how witty he was. If you were around him long enough, you realized he was actually just kind of depressed; terribly insecure. He worried about his future and wanted so badly to mean something special to a girl. I liked the way he walked. The way his broad shoulders sat atop his narrow waist. Almost monkey-ish. The summer flew by. I made a couple subtle moves, and it happened. My first kiss. On the dock in the middle of the pond. The summer heat turned to a chilly breeze under the dark, star-lit sky. Suddenly, the boy who hadn\u2019t shown much interest was talking in hypotheticals. Dangling the possibility of a relationship over my head. Not fully letting me go. And then he was gone. Back to his fancy Ivy League life. I saw him over winter break. He was different. He was a frat boy now with a city girlfriend. I wasn\u2019t hurt. I wasn’t invested enough to be hurt. I still replay everything, though. But it\u2019s different in my mind now. To be honest, I\u2019m not sure I ever had a serious one-on-one conversation with him. I don\u2019t think I did. Did he ever <\/span>really<\/span><\/i> like me? I\u2019m not sure he did. Maybe it was just convenience; maybe it was practice for his college girlfriend. What if I didn\u2019t even know him? What if I wanted something so bad that I convinced myself he was it? What if I\u2019m replaying memories warped with time and hindsight? Mourning feelings that weren\u2019t real? A boy that never was.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nJoelle Sonet<\/strong> is part of the Rutgers class of 2026. She is from Livingston, NJ. She is a Jewish Studies major, although creative writing has always appealed to her. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, clay art, and journaling.<\/span><\/p>\nJoelle wrote this poem in a course taught by Paul Blaney, who selected the piece for inclusion in WHR<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joelle Sonet I think about that summer a lot. I think about him a lot. I cringe a lot. 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